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Jon Snow: newspapers need to wither away.
Jon Snow: newspapers need to wither away. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Jon Snow: newspapers need to wither away. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

It's a great time to be a journalist, says Channel 4's Jon Snow

This article is more than 7 years old

News anchor praises young reporters in Aleppo, points to ‘unbelievable’ Facebook hits and dismisses newspapers for being ‘in the business of lies’

It is the most exciting as well as the most frightening time to be a journalist, says Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow.

Exciting because of the amount of news stories around at present and because of the willingness of enthusiastic young people to report on those events.

Frightening because of the threats to journalists who are trying to report from arenas of conflict, notably the Middle East.

Snow, in addressing a Policy-UK Forum on the new economics of news on Wednesday, spoke of his optimism about journalism in an age of digital media, but was clearly less enamoured with newspapers.

He revealed that the Channel 4’s Facebook page was enjoying “virtually unbelievable” numbers of visitors. “It has received 1.3bn hits since the beginning of the year,” he said.

And it has been Syria that has been “the most hit element of what we provide online”. Part of the reason appears to have been the material provided to C4 News by people in Aleppo.

Snow said: “They’ve been producing amazing content. It shows that citizen journalists can be authoritative information providers. They exhibit integrity, capability and honesty.”

He praised young people who, unlike him, are multi-skilled: “They blog, which means writing, they take pictures, still and video film, and then they edit.... I still can’t edit film myself”.

C4 News’s Facebook page is loaded with segments from its TV output, but Snow noted: “There’s no money in it... we’re talking to key elements of online community about how to make it pay... I’m certain we will be attracting investors”.

He was scathing about newspapers, referring to them as having a “snooty attitude about being the bastions of truth” when “quite a lot of them, the mass-market ones, are in the business of lies.

“They needed to wither away. I’m sorry for people who work there, of course, but I don’t mind them [papers] going. People are looking for quality”.

He thought the media, papers and broadcasters, failed in their coverage of the EU referendum debate that led to Brexit because editors did not recognise the motivation of people who felt alienated. They voted to leave, he said, as “a kind of fuck you” to the establishment.

More on this story

More on this story

  • Jon Snow ‘at complete ease’ with becoming a father again in his 70s

  • Jon Snow’s exit marks the end of an era of TV news big beasts

  • Jon Snow: ‘I’ve always been emotional and I think it’s a good thing’

  • Jon Snow cleared by Ofcom over 'white people' comment

  • The fury of ‘white people’ with Jon Snow shows a total lack of self-awareness on race

  • Why the golden age of TV news presenters has had its day

  • From the grime MC to the model: five men on what masculinity means to them

  • Jon Snow tells anti-Brexit demonstrators to shut up – video

  • Channel 4 News host Jon Snow takes 25% 'gender pay cut'

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